True to the Kinect’s latest trend of expanding its reach outside of casual games and more into core games, Bethesda has announced that the Kinect is coming to Skyrim. Here are some of the features the Kinect will bring:
Shouts
Now you will be able to use your dragon shouts by….well, shouting. You will still have to push buttons on the controller before shouting however, since the Kinect is designed to recognize English and not Thu’um.
Ally Commands
You will be able to give your allies commands such as wait, attack, and trade.
Item Hotkeys
You will be able to assign hotkeys to your items for seamless game play, such as equipping and changing weapons without having to pause mid-battle.
Organization
Trading and bartering with merchants will be easier through vocal organization. You will be able to say commands such as “order by weight” or “order by value”.
Navigation of Menus
Now you will be able to quickly move from point to point on the Skyrim map, just by saying the location’s name. There is also a handy “where am I?” feature that will center your screen over your location cursor.
Additionally, while using the skill tree to level up, you will no longer have to scroll tediously through all of the skills to reach the one you want to level. Just by saying the skill name (ex: “block”), the menu will instantly take you to your specific skill.
Quick Save/Load
Nearly every Skyrim player knows how useful the quick save/quick load feature is in Skyrim and with the Kinect, the process will be streamlined. Without having to pause or enter any menus, simply saying “quick save” or “quick load” will do just that and allow you to continue with your game play.
Bethesda promises that all of these exciting features will be available in the next few weeks, along with more news regarding additional game content.
Here is a video demonstrating the Kinect’s abilities in Skyrim:
